Recipes & Cooking

Running

Posts tagged ‘speedwork’

This was my first entry in my running log since November. Apparently it stretches the bar graph to fill the space available.

I had my first date with the treadmill this morning since before Thanksgiving, and it was glorious. I had 6×800’s at 3:43 pace scheduled, and I really had no idea whether I’d be able to handle it, both from a cardio standpoint as well as the questionable structural integrity of my foot. I ended up cutting it to 5 repeats instead of 6, as I decided not to exceed 4 miles including the warm up and down, but it felt great. I can feel the injury twinge a bit while I’m running, but my foot didn’t feel at all sore afterward, so I’m assuming I’m still in the safe zone and not setting back my recovery. I’m still a bit wary, though, as my foot strike seems a bit altered now (another reason for cutting the workout a bit short). I’ve always pronated more on my left side, and I suspect that may have been the cause of the injury in the first place. Now I seem to be pushing off my big toe more than the lesser ones, and I’m curious if the avoidance of pain may actually serve to correct my stride. Any slight alteration in gait changes biomechanics and alters the stress put on joints, muscles, and soft tissue, though, and I’ve learned the hard way to be ginger as my body adapts. More than once I’ve caused a more major injury by compensating for a minor one, and I definitely don’t need to compound this one.

But back to the intervals. It was amazing! The cardio felt fine the whole way through, and I definitely could have banged out the last repeat without any trouble. It was satisfyingly tiring in the way only a good speed workout is, and I felt properly worn out and hungry for the first time in weeks. I found myself wondering what the runners’ equivalent of smoking a cigarette after is…

I realized that I forgot to post my training schedule this week, so here it is:

Monday – Rest

Tuesday – Intervals: 5x1K @ 7:13 min/mi

Wednesday – XT/Easy run

Thursday – Tempo: 1 mi easy; 4 mi @ 8:09 min/mi; 1 mi easy

Friday – XT/Easy run

Saturday – Rest

Sunday – 20 mi @ 9:47 min/mi

I did do the intervals today, which were probably the toughest workout (at least mentally) that I’ve had yet. For one thing, 1K’s have always been a hard distance for me–they’re in that yicky no man’s land between an 800 and a mile, and I never have a good sense of just how long they are or when the next interval is going to be over. 5x1K’s seem particularly evil, since it’s like the pain of a fast 5K dragged out over a much longer time. (Although, put that way, it does seem like a fabulous training tool.) Anyway, the pace was not actually painful or unsustainable, but I felt like it must have put me physiologically right in my fight or flight zone. The only real description I can give is that it felt stressful in a reptile-brain, something’s-about-to-eat-me sort of way. I really wanted to stop, or at least slow down, but I was aware that although I was working hard, I definitely had it in me to finish. I tried to be Zen about it and just allow the discomfort to be there, which sort of worked. I got through it and I did feel a bit lighter when I would remind myself that I could hang out with the feelings while I just did what I needed to do. I’ll admit to a couple of 30-second walks during the recovery intervals, but I was upstairs (read: hot) at the gym, so all in all, I’d call it a win.

In other news, this weekend my Kindle suggested that I read Beyond Training by Ben Greenfield. I picked it up without really knowing anything about it, but so far I am very intrigued. It’s largely a manual of training hacks for endurance athletes that runs the gamut from how to incorporate strength training effectively, to using electrical muscle stimulation for faster recovery. I haven’t gotten to the nutrition section yet, but his training methods definitely take a primal approach and I’m expecting it to skew somewhat Paleo. I can’t comment on the validity of his approach yet, but the text provides extensive footnotes and references, and I’m looking forward to delving into the science. I’ll write a full review when I’ve finished it; in the meantime you can get a taste for Ben Greenfield’s methods from his podcast.